Montreal's Barn Burner are just one of a growing rag-tag of 70s-worshipping rockers that seem to live only for the riff. At their very core are guitarists who love nothing more than to hack great, pulsating wedges of fuzz out of amps that are permanently rammed up to eleven. Digging into their archive of promo photos, one unfocussed shot tells us all we need to know - it's of the band posing as a ragtag bunch of party-hard tramps with their dishevelled leader proffering a sign that reads "Will riff for food".You've got to love this band. Metal Blade obviously do. They've snapped them up and made a worldwide release of this, their debut album. Originally appearing last year on Montreal indie label, New Romance For Kids Records, it's been boosted by the addition of three new tracks and has had a bit of a spit and polish applied to it. Adrian Popovich (Tricky Woo, Priestess, The Dears) is the man at the helm and he's helped to hone a sound that borrows heavily from the present as well as the past.Having already toured Canada with the likes of Priestess, Bison B.C. and Lords, it's no surprise to find that the band dig their heels into each track, in very much the way that Bison B.C., The Sword and, indeed, Fu Manchu are want to do, grinding out repetitive patterns whilst gently cranking up the output to a final crescendo. And yet to suggest they fit neatly into such a simple template would be lackadaisical. Opener ‘Holy Smokes’, for instance, is without doubt influenced by the characteristic melodic arpeggios of Iron Maiden (even the title itself is surely a reference to Maiden’s own ‘Holy Smoke’), then ‘Half-Past Haggard’ (one of those extra tracks) recalls the riff from QOTSA’s ‘You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar”¦’, and tracks like ‘Fast Women’ and ‘Wizard Island’ conjure up the bluesy majesty of bands like Wolfmother and Thin Lizzy.Kevin Keegan (no, not that one) sings such glorious lines as “For better, for worse / nice day for a fucking curse / I wrote these rules when I broke these rules” and “Don’t call for help ‘cos they’re already doomed / Don’t look ‘cos there’s blood on your hands, blood on your hands / And it’s not of your own, it’s everyone’s” in an angst-ridden, throaty vocal mixture of Andrew Stockdale (Wolfmother) and Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin). It energises the music, gurgling along above the crunchy murk of the guitar overdrive and bass vibration.With such a tasty combination it’s easy to revel in the lumbering, blissed-out groove of ‘Beer Today, Bong Tomorrow’, the Jack n’ Coke rock n’ roll of ‘Tremors’ or the dangerously unstable rollercoaster ride of ‘Brohemoth’, but the one reason to buy into this seedy party is for the deranged, fist-throwing brute that is ‘Medium Rare’. What a way to announce your arrival.